Thursday, March 20, 2014

Review: Unremembered (Unremembered #1)


Summary
When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe.

Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. And no one can explain why her DNA and fingerprints can’t be found in a single database in the world.

Crippled by a world she doesn’t know, plagued by abilities she doesn’t understand, and haunted by a looming threat she can’t remember, Seraphina struggles to piece together her forgotten past and discover who she really is. But with every clue only comes more questions. And she’s running out of time to answer them.

Her only hope is a strangely alluring boy who claims to know her from before the crash. Who claims they were in love. But can she really trust him? And will he be able to protect her from the people who have been making her forget?

From popular young adult author Jessica Brody comes a compelling and suspenseful new sci-fi series, set in a world where science knows no boundaries, memories are manipulated, and true love can never be forgotten.



Rating & Review

For the sake of being completely honest, I did not purchase this book and I did not receive it in exchange for a review. I actually won it during the "Guess This Young Adult Novel" game at the virtual release party for Unforgotten (the sequel to this book) by Jessica Brody and Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott. Apparently, I know too many young adult novels. And I was chastised by Jessica Brody for answering too many questions. Nothing like getting a virtual slap on the wrist to make you like an author. Only kidding, the ladies were great and if you ever get a chance to go to a signing, I bet that it would be an awesome time. Just don't let on that you know a lot about young adult novels. That's your only warning. Well, crap. Now I've gone on for a paragraph and I could have just said, "I received this book from the author". But then you wouldn't have gotten that wonderful story. You're welcome.

Okay ... moving on ... Unremembered. First of all, longest one word title ever. And ironically enough, I couldn't remember the title half the time. But that's got nothing to do with this book and more to do with the fact I have two boys who drive me up the wall and make me forget my own name on a daily basis. You know, I really liked Unremembered. I liked it more than I thought that I would. Not that I thought that it was going to be a bad book, you just never know. I try to start a book with the mindset that it's just going to be just okay and that way, I'm surprised if it's good or ... meh. But this one was good. 

The book really started off strong for me. It was so strange ... every time I would start thinking something about Sera (the main character), Brody would address that thought in the next paragraph. For example (no this isn't a spoiler) when Sera didn't remember even the smallest thing (what items are or what some words mean), my initial thought was ... Oh, she can't remember that but she can carry on a conversation ... then the next paragraph, Brody addressed that and closed that issue down. This happened a lot, actually. It was almost as if Brody was in my head while I was reading. While it was on the cusp of being creepy, it was also quite refreshing. The majority of the time with other books, those issues are just never addressed then you're left wondering and in the end, frustrated. You can really tell that Brody took her time writing this and that she really cares about this story and the characters within it. She took care to shut down any uncertainty or questions that the reader might have. Now that in itself is a big deal because of what this book is really about ... I won't tell because that would spoil the fun for you but I think that it is SUPER important to have complete understanding wash over the reader with this kind of book. 

I really liked how the characters were set up. Again, there were just not many questions that I had about the characters ... all of their motivators and just the deep center of each person was pretty well explored and explained. The meat of the story was thoroughly entertaining and I found myself sneaking in little tid-bits of time to read when the boys were at school yesterday when I should have been doing other things ... like laundry and doing dishes ... 

So why did this only get 4 stars then? Is it because I was humiliated at the virtual release party? No, but I totally gave Jessica Brody's pic at the back of the book The Stink Eye. Watch out! In all honesty, the 4 stars came about because Unremembered slowed down for me for a bit in the beginning. Not to the point of being boring, far from that. There is just a lot of information and a lot of transitional situations that happen which you need to get through. Once you get to part two, it takes off again and you're flying by the seat of your pants until you get to the hugely frustrating cliffhanger ending. Ginormously frustrating. Well, it won't be frustrating if you can go get the second book IMMEDIATELY. Unfortunately, I have another book need to dive into today or I would be reading Unforgotten. All in all, you need to check this book out. I have a feeling that the other two books in the series are going to be even better!! 



Find Unremembered here:



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